“Brat,” he’d admonished gently, and tweaked her nose. “No half measures, remember?”

“Yes, Sir,” she’d replied in the same subservient tone, then burst into giggles when he’d scooped her up and dropped her into bed.

She’d thought he’d make love to her again at that point, but instead he’d cuddled her close in the dark, and it had been almost as good as sex.

Though she wouldn’t mind more sex soon, she thought, and grinned at her reflection.

She brushed her teeth quickly, then wove her hair into a loose braid. She started to go to the guest room for her robe, then on impulse picked up the dress shirt he’d worn last night. It clearly needed to be cleaned—the tails were wrinkled from being tucked into his slacks, and there were smears of pink lipstick on the front. But it still smelled like him, like sweat and peppermint soap, so she slipped it on and headed downstairs.

She stopped in the living room to fish her phone out of her evening bag, checking her messages on the way to the kitchen. Sadie had texted four times that morning, she noted with amusement, starting with So? How’d it go? at seven-thirty, and ending with WOMAN IF YOU DON’T TEXT ME BACK AND LET ME KNOW YOUR’E OKAY, SO HELP ME GOD… just a few minutes ago.

Not wanting to find out what ‘so help me God’ actually meant, and a little startled by the all caps, she fired off a quick I’m fine, sorry, slept late, then set her phone on the counter.

She could hear muffled thumps coming from the open basement door, and knowing Cade had a small gym set up down there, assumed he was working out. She saw no evidence he’d already eaten—though he was even neater than she was, so it was entirely possible he’d fixed something and washed up after himself. But she erred on the side of caution and began gathering the ingredients for pancakes for two.

His cupboards were well stocked and ruthlessly organized—even the cabinet dedicated to canned black beans—so it was easy to find all the ingredients she needed. There was no buttermilk in the fridge, but he had milk and apple cider vinegar, so she made do.

She was just slipping the butter into the microwave to melt when her phone dinged again. Glad you’re fine, the message read, but HOW WAS IT?

Amused, she typed back, I’ll tell you later, got my hands full making breakfast at the moment, and reached for the measuring cups. She hadn’t even scooped out the first cup of flour when her phone rang.

Laughing, she answered the call and put it on speaker. “Hi, Sadie. What’s up?”

“What’s up, she says, as if I haven’t been sitting on pins and needles all night. How. Was. It?”